Can a $10 Robot Save African Education?

Nii Adjetey Sowah programs a Mindstorms robot in Ayorkor Korsah’s Introduction to Robotics class at Ashesi University College in Ghana.

Ten dollars doesn’t get you a lot of parts. Then again, $35 for a computer seemed pretty outrageous not too long ago. The success of that Raspberry Pi Micro-Computer prompted professors Ken Goldberg and Ayorkor Korsah to stage a contest: Design a $10 robot. Conceived as a teaching tool for use in African classrooms, such a low-cost machine could prove to be revolutionary for education in poorer countries around the world.

Launched last month and ending on Sept. 15, the contest offers prizes for any professional, student, or hobbyist who can design a $10 robot — or at least one in that neighborhood.

“Obviously a $10 is very … it’s a bit unrealistic,” says Goldberg, a professor of engineering at UC Berkeley. “But we wanted to set [a price] that would really get people thinking. And in volume, it’s not that farfetched.”

The AFRON 10 Dollar Robot Challenge offers three prizes, from $100 to $500, plus a Raspberry Pi, in each of three categories, based on the type of robot. The $10 limit is flexible — more a target price for a high-quantity production run. The prototypes, Goldberg expects, will cost more like $100, still a long way short of even a Lego Mindstorms set.

The contest is part of Goldberg and Korsah’s African Robotics Network (AFRON), a new organization built to bring robots to Africa, not for industry, but as a learning tool for students.

The contest is designed to bring robots to Africa, not for industry, but as a learning tool for students.

On a trip to Ghana, Goldberg noticed students in Korsah’s class at Ashesi University College using Mindstorms kits … then packing them up and sending them to another school to use the next week. If the $280 cost of a Mindstorms kit is prohibitive, he wondered, what could AFRON do to bring the price down?

“We set the bar high (or in this case low) to provoke really new ideas,” Goldberg says.

Still having trouble imagining a robot that can be built for $10? Goldberg is reserved in his description of what one might look like. “We wanted to be careful not to say too much,” he says. “That could bias people and basically push the design in one direction or the other.”

What the robots do isn’t as important as what the schools can do with them. They’re simply a tool for education, to teach programming and engineering. Still, he points out, using a refurbished laptop for brains (which is not included in the contest’s price limit), simple inexpensive tools like laser pointers, electric motors, microphones, and even mirrors can produce a lot of potential function.

The winning designs must use open source software, and AFRON will publish them online. The hope, says Goldberg, is that educators around the world will be able to use the design and the software, and eventually even order an inexpensive, mass-produced kit.

“My hunch is that this will be really inspirational,” Goldberg says. “People will start writing code for it.”

A ball-transporting robot, made from cardboard.Photos courtesy of Ayorkor Korsah.